


Vhenan Sulahn

by EmberLeo



Series: The Emberquizzy Chronicles [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fade Dreams, Inspired by Music, Modern Girl in Thedas, POV Solas (Dragon Age), Post-Break Up, Self-Insert, Thedas is an Otherworld, fade walking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24714403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmberLeo/pseuds/EmberLeo
Summary: Shortly after breaking up with her, Solas finds Inquisitor Ember singing her heart out in the fade, and can't resist stopping to watch.-----A Solas PoV side scene from The Canticle of Dreams.It should stand alone, but will make more sense if you've read through Chapter 39 of the main story first.Mostly posted as an apology for my not feeling up to writing Chapter 40 yet.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age)
Series: The Emberquizzy Chronicles [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1241567
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28





	Vhenan Sulahn

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya folks.
> 
> I feel pretty frelling crappy right now, for a variety of reasons.
> 
> I'm slogging my way through the next chapter of the main fic, but I felt more up to finishing this emo scene in the parallel Solas PoV doc I've been writing all along, and then noticed that it actually goes *right where we are in the main story*, so I thought, "hell with it, I'll post this for them, and maybe they'll forgive me for being too wrecked to write Ch 40 in a timely fashion."
> 
> Thanks, as always, to UncleDark and Cowoline for help editing.  
> Comments and Kudos always greatly appreciated!
> 
> -E-

_“Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide…”_

Solas heard her singing in dreams, a strain of yearning melody carried on the winds of the fade. It pulled on him, curiosity mingling with desire and regret. The part of his mind that remembered his duty resisted - he should leave her be, let her forget him, move on. It was bad enough that they still had to work together until he could retrieve his orb.

And yet, his feet were moving already, to follow the sound, and every step towards it felt like a tiny release of pressure on his heart.

_“Voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time…”_

As he approached, her voice was matched by droning chords from an unfamiliar instrument. He followed the sound to the edges of his own dream, drawn inexorably towards his _vhenan,_ as though the beating in his own chest was some foreign thing, merely holding place until its namesake could be restored. 

_“The night is my companion, and solitude my guide…”_

Often, when Ember sang in her dreams, she created a clearing in a forest. He knew she loved the green places where small streams flowed, and the trees were tall enough to provide shade for much of a day. She returned often to a particular clearing with a campfire, low buildings, and tall treehouses.

_“Will I spend forever here and not be satisfied?”_

What he found instead, he was not expecting. Ember stood in a pool of light draped in a dress of sparkling copper that hugged her hips and fell smoothly down one thigh to brush the tops of her toes. The other thigh was revealed by the split in the skirt, as were her shoulders, arms, and enticing cleavage. She was singing slowly, her wine-stained lips almost kissing the silver object in her hand. Her eyes were painted with smoke, closed as she sang, as if it was all she could do to release the melody into the world around her.

_“I would be the one…”_

She was centered on a brightly-lit stage. The object in her hands appeared to be a silver mesh orb mounted on a dark pole. This she sang directly to, as if it alone should hear her. Yet what it heard, the whole room heard, resonating from large black boxes at the corners of the room. Under any other circumstances, Solas would have been seized with fascination by the curious devices he could only assume were from her home world.

As it was, he could barely tear his eyes from her to examine the rest of the room.

_“To hold you down, kiss you so hard...”_

The hall was about the size of the vault underneath the throne room at _Tarasyl’an Te’las_. It was strangely lit by devices in the corners and across the ceiling, not bright, but colorful, and in some cases, moving. The room was arranged with tables and chairs around the edges, open floor in the center, and a small stage at the back. Wisps formed impressions of dancers and diners around the room, and the dim outlines of a few musicians at the back of the stage.

_“I’ll take your breath away...”_

Solas realized he hadn’t been breathing when his breath suddenly escaped him.

_“And after, I’d... wipe away the tears...”_

He glanced around the room for a place to remain unnoticed, and settled for a seat at a table in a corner passed over by the lights.

_“Just close your eyes, dear...”_

She turned her head down and away, eyes still closed. When she looked up again, her eyes were open, but, to his relief, they did not seek his.

_“Through this world I’ve stumbled,  
So many times betrayed.” _

He leaned in to brace his elbows on the table, pressing his hands together, and his lips to the tips of his fingers. The words washed over him, and he sighed.

_“Trying to find an honest word,  
To find the truth enslaved.” _

It wasn’t a song he’d heard her sing before. Was it one she had learned in her own world, or did she compose the song as she sang it?

_“Oh, you speak to me in riddles  
And you speak to me in rhymes.” _

He frowned, eyebrows furrowing, fighting back the stab of guilt. He should not presume the song was directed at him, but he could think of no others who had betrayed her as he had. Yet, she still did not know the true depth of his betrayal.

Or did she? He could never be certain, and that, alone, was enough to drive him away.

_My body aches to breathe your breath.  
Your words keep me alive!” _

He closed his eyes, his chest tightening painfully. Behind his eyes, lights danced across the room. The more he listened, the more her voice seemed weighed down, torn between tears and desire.

For one strange moment, he found himself wishing he knew the song, that he could sing it with her. What he expected that would do, he didn’t know, and he dismissed the thought as meaningless almost as quickly as it arrived, but the feeling itself lingered.

Still, there was something in the way she breathed, the way she bestowed her words upon the artifact in her hands, that made him wish he could feel her emotions as his own, if only for a moment, to know what she was feeling. Waves of emotion rolled off of her, flooding the room, but all it did was give him a sense of _feeling itself._ All he knew was that right then she was drowning, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to drown with her.

He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, only to be drawn back into the song.

_Into this night I’ve wandered  
It’s morning that I dread _

If it was a song she’d learned at home, it was surprisingly apt. But passion, it seemed, was the same in all worlds, as much as he’d wanted to believe it was somehow unique to Elvhenan. How could a world so misbegotten, so _suppressed_ , still hold to the deepest essence of his People?

_Another day of knowing of  
the path I fear to tread _

The veil had been so suffocating, he couldn’t imagine how others could feel so strongly, so vividly, in the muted, distorted reality to which he awoke. The further into the broken world he wandered, the more he found himself underestimating the mortals around him, time and time again.

Yet it had never been power that drove his People, but passion, and here, now, he could not deny that it was passion still that drove the mortals today, for better and worse.

_Oh, into the sea of waking dreams  
I follow without pride _

He startled, wincing, and looked up again to see if she had spotted him. But no, her eyes remained closed as she lifted her face to the heavens, her left hand raised, entreating. He half expected a rift to open in the center of the dance floor at her gesture. Waking dreams indeed.

And yet, not without Pride, for it seemed he couldn’t bring himself to stay away.

_Nothing stands between us here  
And I won’t be denied! _

He couldn’t breathe. He rose from the table, pulling back into the shadows, and fled the dream before he could risk her discovering him.

Her expression as he took one last, longing glance her way, was such a mixture of passion and distress, it reminded him of all the things he yet yearned to do to her, with her, for her, body and spirit - and all the risks such desires on his part would bring.

He could not afford this fixation. There was no room in his duty for distraction. It was selfish to have allowed himself to grow so close to her in the first place, and dangerous for him to have sought her dreams now.

He forced himself to wake.

\-----

**Author's Note:**

> The song EmberQuizzy is singing is "Possession" by Sarah McLaughlan, which I do, in fact, sing at Karaoke sometimes.
> 
> I absolutely love the song, but dear gods is it a messed up narrative (and rightfully so, given its origin). But it's too perfect for this bit of the story not to use it.


End file.
